Karmic Relationships:Esoteric Studies - Volume III

Schmidt Number: S-5814

On-line since: 15th July, 2007

III

THE SPIRITUAL
FOUNDATIONS OF ANTHROPOSOPHICAL ENDEAVOUR

We have seen how
the study of karma, wherein the destiny of man is
contained, leads us from the affairs of the farthest
universe — from the worlds of the stars — down
to the tenderest experiences of the human heart, inasmuch
as the heart is an expression of all that man feels working
upon him during life, — of all that happens to him in
the whole nexus of earth-existence. When we try to arrive
at our judgments through a deeper understanding of the
karmic connections, we are driven again and again to look
into these two domains of world-existence which lie so far
removed from one another. Indeed we must say: Whatever else
we may be studying, — be it Nature, or the more
natural configuration of human evolution in history or in
the life of nations — none of these leads us so high
up into cosmic realms as the study of karma. The study of
karma makes us altogether aware of the connections between
human life here upon earth and that which goes on in the
wide universe. We see this human life taking its course on
earth, unfolding till about the 70th year of life, when in
a certain connection it attains its limit. Whatever lies
beyond this is in reality a life given by grace. What lies
below this limit stands under karmic influences, and these
we shall now have to study.

It is possible,
as I have often mentioned from varied points of view, to
put the length of human life on earth at about 72 years.
Now 72 years, seen in relation to the secrets of the
cosmos, is a remarkable number, the true significance of
which only begins to dawn upon us when we consider what I
may call the cosmic secret of human earthly life. We have
already described what the world of the stars is from a
spiritual point of view. When we enter on a new earthly
life, we return, so to speak, from the world of stars to
this life on earth.

At this point
once more it is astonishing how the ancient ideas —
even if we do not take our start from tradition —
simply emerge again of their own accord when we approach
these domains of life with the help of modern spiritual
science. We have seen how the various planetary stars and
fixed stars take part in human life and in all that
permeates this human life on earth. If we have before us an
earthly life that has taken its full course, — one
that does not come to an end all too soon, but that has
passed through half at least of the allotted earthly time,
— then in the last resort we find this truth once
more: The human being, inasmuch as he comes down from
cosmic spiritual spaces into an earthly life, comes always
from a certain star. We can trace the very direction of it,
and it is not unreal — on the contrary, it is most
exact, to say: — ‘The human being has his
star.’ If we take what is experienced beyond all
space and time between death and a new birth, and translate
this into its spatial image, we can say: Every man has his
star, which determines what he has attained between death
and a new birth.

He comes from the
direction of a certain star. We may indeed receive into our
minds this conception. The whole human race inhabiting the
earth is to be found on the one hand by looking round about
us upon earth, passing through these many continents,
finding them peopled by the human beings who are now
incarnated. And the others who are not on the earth, where
in the universe shall we find them? Whither must we look in
the great universe if we would turn our soul's gaze to
them, — assuming that a certain time has elapsed
since they went through the gate of death? The answer is:
We look in the true direction when we look out upon the
starry heavens. There are the souls — or at least the
directions which will enable us to find the souls —
-who are spending their life between death and a new birth.
We see and comprehend the entire human race that inhabits
the earth, when we look upward and downward.

Those alone who
are now on the way thither or returning thence, we find in
the planetary region. But we can certainly not speak of the
midnight hour of existence between death and a new birth,
without thinking of some star which the human being as it
were indwells between death and a new birth (albeit we must
always bear in mind what I have said about the beings of
the stars).

Then, my dear
friends, we shall approach the cosmos with this knowledge.
Away there are the stars, the cosmic signs from which there
shines and lightens down upon us the soul-life of those who
are between death and a new birth. And then we become aware
that we can look also at the constellations of stars,
saying to ourselves: ‘How is all this, that we behold
in cosmic spaces, connected with the life of man?’ We
look up with a new fulness of heart and mind to the silvery
moon, the dazzling blaze of the sun, the twinkling stars at
night-time, and we feel ourselves united even humanly with
all of these. This is what Anthroposophy is to attain at
last for the souls of men: they shall feel themselves
united even in a human way with the whole cosmos. It is at
this point that certain secrets of cosmic existence first
begin to dawn upon us.

The sun rises and
sets; the stars rise and set. We can trace how the sun
sets, for example in the region where there are certain
groups of stars. We can trace what is now called the
apparent course of the stars, circling round the earth. We
can trace the course of the sun. In 24 hours, the sun
circles around the earth — ‘apparently’
as we say nowadays, — and the stars too circle around
the earth. So we say: but it is not quite correct.
For if again and again we attentively observe the course of
stars and sun, we perceive at length that the sun does not
always rise at the same time in relation to the stars. It
grows ever a little later. Day after day it arrives a
little later at the place where it was on the previous day
in relation to the stars. These spaces of time, by which
the sun remains behind the stars in their course, add up
till they become an hour, two hours, three hours, and at
length a day. Thus at length the time approaches when we
can say: The sun has remained behind the star by a whole
day.

Now let us
assume: Someone was born on the 1st of March in a
particular year. And, let us say, he lived till the end of
his 72nd year. He always celebrates his birthday on the 1st
of March, for the sun says: His birthday is on the 1st of
March. And he can celebrate it so, for throughout the 72
years of his life (though it progresses in relation to the
stars) the sun shines forth ever and again in the
neighbourhood of the star that shone when he came down to
earth. But when he has lived for 72 years, a full day has
elapsed. He has arrived at an age in life when the sun
leaves the star into which it entered when he began his
life. At his birthday now he is beyond the 1st of March.
The star no longer says the same as the sun; the stars say
it is the 2nd of March; the sun says it is the 1st. The
human being has lost a cosmic day, for it takes just 72
years for the sun to remain behind a star.

During this time
which the sun can spend in the region of his star, a man
can live on earth. Then (under normal conditions) when the
sun is no longer there to comfort his star for his life on
earth, when the sun no longer says to his star: ‘He
is down there, and I from myself am giving thee what he
— this human being — has to give to thee; and
for the time being, as I cover thee, I am doing for him
what thou dost for him between death and a new
birth,’ when the sun can no longer speak thus to the
star, the star summons the man back again.

Thus you perceive
the processes in the heavens immediately connected with
human existence upon earth. In the mysteries of the heavens
we see the age of man's life expressed. Man can live 72
years, because in this time the sun remains a day behind.
After that time the sun can no longer comfort the star
which it could comfort while it stood before and covered
it. The star has become free again for the soul-spiritual
work of man within the cosmos.

These things
cannot be understood in any other way than with reverence,
— with that deep reverence which was called in the
ancient Mysteries ‘the reverence for that which is
above.’ For this reverence leads us ever and again to
see what happens here on earth in connection with what is
unfolded in the sublime, majestic writing of the stars. It
is indeed a limited life men lead today, compared to what
was still existing at the beginning of the 3rd
Post-Atlantean epoch. They did not merely base their
reckoning, their understanding of man, on that which
describes his steps upon the earth; they reckoned with what
the stars of the great universe are saying about the life
of man.

Once we are
attentive to such connections and able to receive them with
reverence into our souls, then too we know: ‘Whatever
happens here on earth has its corresponding counterpart in
the spiritual worlds.’ In the writing of the stars is
expressed the kind of connection that exists between what
happens here, and what happened (to speak from the earthly
point of view) ‘some time ago’ in the spiritual
world. In truth our every reflection upon karma should be
accompanied by holy reverence and awe before the secrets of
the universe.

In such a mood of
reverence, let us approach the studies of karma which we
are to make here during the near future. To begin with let
us take this fact: Here are sitting a number of human
beings, a section of what we call the Anthroposophical
Society; and though one of us may be united with this
Anthroposophical Society by stronger links, and another by
less strong, it is in all cases part of a man's destiny
— and the destiny that underlies these things is
powerful — it is a part of his destiny that he has
found his way into the Anthroposophical Society. Moreover,
it lies inherent in the spiritualisation which must come
over the Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas
Foundation Meeting: — We must become ever more
conscious of the spiritual, cosmic realities that underlie
such a community as this Society. For out of such a
consciousness the individual will then be able to take his
true stand in the Society. Hence you will understand
— along with all the other responsibilities resulting
from the Christmas Foundation Meeting — that we must
now begin to say something too about the karma of the
Anthroposophical Society. It is very complicated, for it is
a karma of community, — a karma that arises from the
karmic coming-together of many single human beings. Take in
its true and deep meaning all that has been said in these
lectures and all that results from the many relationships
that have been unfolded here; then, my dear friends, you
will yourselves perceive that what is taking place here in
our midst — where a number of human beings are led by
their karma into the Anthroposophical Society — has
been preceded by many and important events which happened
to these very human beings before they came down into this
present earthly life — events moreover which were
themselves the after-effects of what had taken place in
former lives on earth.

Let your thought
dwell for a moment on the great vistas that are opened up
by such an idea as this. Then you will realise how this
thought may by and by be deepened till there emerges the
spiritual history that stands behind the Anthroposophical
Society. But this cannot be accomplished all at once. It
can only enter our consciousness slowly and gradually; then
only will it be possible to build even the conduct and
action of the Anthroposophical Society on the foundations
which are actually there for anthroposophists.

It is of course
Anthroposophy as such which holds the Society together. In
one way or another, everyone who finds his way into the
Society must be seeking for Anthroposophy. And the
preceding causes are to be sought for in the experiences
which were undergone, by the souls who now become
anthroposophists, before they came down into this earthly
life.

At the same time,
if we look out into the world with a clear perception of
what has happened hitherto, we are also bound to admit:
There are many human beings whom we find here or there in
the world today, and of whom — looking at their
connection with their pre-earthly life — we must say
that they were truly pre-destined by their pre-natal life
for the Anthroposophical Society; and yet, owing to certain
other things, they are unable to find their way into it.
There are far more of them than we generally think.

This must bring
still nearer to our hearts the question: What is the
pre-destination that leads a soul to Anthroposophy?

I will take my
start from extreme examples, which are all the more
instructive in showing how the karmic forces work. In the
Anthroposophical Society the question of karma does indeed
arise before the individual in a more intensive way than in
other realms of life. I need only say the following: The
souls who are incarnated in a human body now, — to
begin with we cannot possibly follow them back far enough
to assume that they experienced directly in their past
earthly lives anything that could lead them, for example,
to Eurhythmy (to take this radical instance from within the
Anthroposophical Movement). For Eurhythmy did not exist in
the times when the souls who now seek for it were
incarnated. Thus the burning question arises: How comes it
that a soul finds its way into Eurhythmy out of the working
of the karmic forces?

But so it is in
all the domains of life. Souls are there today, seeking the
way to that which Anthroposophy can give them. How do they
come to unfold all the pre-dispositions of their karma from
past earthly lives, precisely in this direction which leads
them to Anthroposophy?

In the first
place there are some souls who are driven to Anthroposophy
with strong inner intensity. The intensity of these forces
is not the same in all. Some souls are driven to
Anthroposophy with such inward intensity that it seems as
though they were steering straight towards it without any
by-ways at all, finding their way directly into one domain
or another of the anthroposophical life.

There are a
number of souls who steer their cosmic way in this sense
for the following reason: In past centuries, when they had
their former life on earth, they felt with peculiar
intensity that Christianity had reached a definite
turning-point. They lived in an age when the main effect of
Christianity was to pass over into a more or less
instinctive human feeling. It was an age when Christianity
was practised in a perfectly natural and simple way but
quite instinctively; so that the question did not really
occur to the souls of men: Why am I a Christian? Such souls
we find especially if we turn our gaze to the 13th, 12th,
11th, 10th, 9th, and 8th centuries after Christ. There we
find Christ-permeated souls, who were growing and evolving
towards the age of Consciousness (the age of the Spiritual
Soul), but who, since this age had not yet begun, were
still receiving Christianity into the pure Mind-Soul. On
the other hand, with respect to the worldly affairs of
life, they already experienced the dawn of what the
Spiritual Soul is destined to bring.

Thus their
Christianity lived in a way unconsciously. It was in many
respects a deeply pious Christianity, but it lived, if I
may say so, leaving the head on one side and entering
straight into the functions of the organism. Now that which
is unconscious in one life becomes a degree more conscious
in the next life on earth: and so this Christianity which
had not become fully clear or self-conscious, became at
length a challenge and a question for these human souls:
‘Why are we Christians?’

The outcome was
(I am speaking in an introductory way today, hinting at
matters which will be spoken of more fully afterwards) the
outcome was that in the life between death and a new birth
these souls had a certain connection once more in the
spiritual world, especially in the first half of the 19th
century. In the first half of the 19th century there were
gatherings of souls in the spiritual world, — souls
who took the consequences of the Christianity they had
experienced on earth, finding it again in the radiance, in
the all embracing glory of the spiritual world. Above all
in the first half of the 19th century, there were souls in
the life between death and a new birth who strove to
translate into cosmic Imaginations what they had felt in a
preceding Christian life on earth. The very thing that I
once described here as a great cult or act of ritual was
there enacted in the Supersensible. A large number of souls
were gathered in these mutually-woven cosmic Imaginations,
in these mighty pictures of a future existence, which they
were to seek again in an altered form during their next
life on earth.

But in all this
was also interwoven all that had taken place between the
7th and 13th or 14th centuries A.D. by way of dire and
painful inner conflicts, which were indeed more painful
than is generally thought. For the souls to whom I now
refer had undergone very much during that time; and all
that they had thus undergone, they wove it into the mighty
cosmic Imaginations which were woven together by a large
number of souls in common, during the first half of the
19th century.

The great cosmic
Imaginations that were thus woven were shot through on the
one hand by something that I cannot otherwise describe than
as a kind of longing and expectant feeling. Working out
these mighty Imaginations, the souls experienced within
them a concentrated feeling, gathered from manifold
experiences, a concentrated feeling within their
disembodied souls. It was a feeling which I can describe
somewhat as follows: ‘In our last life on earth we
inclined towards the living experience of Christianity.
Deeply we felt the Mysteries which tradition had preserved
for all Christians, telling of the sacred and solemn
happenings in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian
era. But did He really stand before us in all His glory, in
His full radiance?’ The question arose out of their
hearts. ‘Was it not only after our death that we
learned how Christ had descended from cosmic heights, as a
Being of the Sun, to the earth? Did we really experience
Him as the Being of the Sun? He is here no longer, He is
united with the earth. Here we can only find what is like a
great cosmic memory of Him. We must find our way back again
to the earth, in order to have the Christ before our
souls.’

A longing for
Christ accompanied these souls from that time forth, when
with the Spirit-Beings of the Hierarchies they wove the
mighty and sublime cosmic Imaginations. This longing went
with them from their pre-earthly life into the present life
on earth.

This can be
experienced with overwhelming intensity by spiritual vision
when it observes what was taking place in mankind,
incarnate and discarnate, in the course of the 19th and
20th centuries. And as I said, all manner of things were
mingled into these impressions. For we must remember that
in their Christian experience the souls who are now
returning had shared in all that was taking place as
between those who were striving for Christianity and those
who still stood within the old Pagan consciousness, —
which was frequently the case during the centuries to which
I just now referred. In these souls therefore, many of
those influences are present which make it possible for man
to fall a victim to the temptations of Lucifer on the one
hand and Ahriman on the other. For in karma, Lucifer and
Ahriman are weaving, no less than the good gods: this we
have already seen.

All that was thus
interwoven, and that works itself out karmically today,
must be followed out in detail, if we would really
penetrate the spiritual foundations of anthroposophical
striving. If the Christmas Foundation Meeting is to be
taken in real earnest, the time has now come when we must
draw aside the veil from certain things. Only they must be
taken with the necessary earnestness.

Let us begin, as
I said, with a radical instance; and while we discuss the
following, let there hold sway in the background, for the
rest of this hour, all that has now been said.

From the
pre-earthly into this earthly existence, through their
education, through all that they experience on earth, human
souls find their way. They seek and find their way into the
Anthroposophical Society, and remain in it for a time. But
there are isolated cases among them, where, having shown
themselves zealous, nay over-zealous members of the
Anthroposophical Society for a while, they become the most
violent opponents. Let us observe the working of karma in
an extreme case of this kind.

A person comes
into the Anthroposophical Society. He proves a very zealous
member, yet after a time he somehow manages to become not
only an opponent but a maligner among opponents. We must
admit, it is a very strange karma.

We will consider
a single case. There is a soul. We look back into a past
life on earth, into a time when old memories from the ages
of Paganism still lingered on, enticingly for many people.
It was a time when men were finding their way on the one
hand into a Christianity that spread out with a certain
warmth and fire, and yet, for many of them, with a certain
superficiality.

When such things
are spoken of, we must always remember that we have to
begin somewhere or other, at some particular earthly life.
Every such earthly life leads back to earlier ones in turn;
therefore there will always be some things that remain
unexplained — things to which we simply refer as
matters of fact. They are of course the karmic consequences
of still earlier events, but we have to begin
somewhere.

In the period to
which I have just referred we find a certain soul. We find
him, indeed, in a way that very nearly concerned myself and
other present members of this Society. We find him as a
would-be maker of gold, in possession of writings,
manuscripts which he is hardly able to understand but
interprets in his own way and then makes experiments in
accordance with the instructions, though he has no real
notion what he is doing. For it is by no means a simple
matter to look into the spiritually chemical relationships,
if we may call them so. Thus we see him as an experimenter,
with a little library containing the most varied
instructions and recipes going far back into Moorish and
Arabian sources. We see him unfolding this activity in an
almost out-of-the-way place, though visited by many
inquisitive persons. At length, under the influence of the
practices in which he engages without understanding, he
gets a strange physical debility, — a disease
attacking especially the larynx, — and (this being a
masculine incarnation) his voice becomes hoarser and
hoarser till it has almost vanished.

Meanwhile the
Christian teachings are spread abroad; they are taking hold
of men on all hands. This man is filled on the one hand
with the greedy longing to make gold, and, with the making
of gold, to attain many other things attainable at that
time if one had been successful in making gold. On the
other hand Christianity comes near to him, in a way that is
full of reproaches. There arises in him what I may perhaps
describe as a kind of Faustian feeling, though not
altogether pure. Strong becomes the feeling in him:
‘Have I not really done an awful wrong?’
By-and-by under the influence of such reflections the
conclusion grows upon him, living with scepticism in his
soul: ‘Your having lost your voice is the divine
punishment, the just punishment, for meddling with
unrighteous things.’

In this situation
of his inner life, he sought out the advice of human beings
who have also become united at this present time with the
Anthroposophical Society, and who were able at that time
really to play a helpful part in his destiny. For they were
able to save his soul from deep and anxious doubt. We can
really speak of a certain ‘salvation of the
soul’ in this case. But all this took place under
such conditions that he experienced it with feelings which
remained to some extent external, no matter how intense
they were. He was overwhelmed on the one hand with a sense
of gratitude toward those who had saved his inner life. But
on the other hand — unclear as it all was — an
appalling Ahrimanic impulse became mingled with it. After
the strong inclination towards unrighteous magic practices,
and with his present feeling — which was not quite
genuine — of having entered into Christian
righteousness, an Ahrimanic trait became mixed up in all
these things. For in effect the soul was brought into
confusion; things were not really clear, and the result was
that he brought an Ahrimanic trait into his gratitude. His
thankfulness was transformed into something that found an
unworthy expression in his soul, and that appeared to him
in this light, during his life between death and new birth.
It came before him especially when he had reached that
point which I described, in the first half of the 19th
century. There he had to live through it again; and he
experienced the deep unworthiness of what his soul had
evolved in that former life, by way of gratitude which was
superficial, external, nay even cringing.

We see this
picture of Ahrimanised gratitude mixed up in the cosmic
Imaginations of which I spoke. And we see the soul descend
from that pre-earthly existence into a new earthly life. We
see him descend on the one hand with all those impulses
that entered into him from the time when he was seeking to
make gold, — the materialistic corruption of a
spiritual striving. On the other hand we see evolving in
him under the Ahrimanic influence something which is
distinctly to be perceived as a sense of shame, —
shame at his gratitude improperly expressed and
superficial.

These two
currents live in his soul as he descends to earth. And they
express themselves in this way: The soul of whom I am
speaking, having become a person again in earthly life,
finds his way to those others who were also with him in the
first half of the 19th century.

To begin with, a
kind of memory arises in him of what he lived through in
the Imaginative picture of the unworthy external gratitude.
All these things become unfolded now, almost automatically.
Then there awakens what is living there within him, —
what I described as a sense of shame at his own attitude
which had been unworthy of a man. This takes hold of his
soul, but, influenced as it is by Ahriman (through the
karma of former epochs too, of course), it finds vent as an
appalling hatred against all that he had at first espoused.
The sense of shame against himself becomes transformed into
a wild and angry opposition. And this again is united with
dreadful disappointment that all his old subconscious
cravings have been so little satisfied. For they would have
been satisfied if anything had arisen now, similar to what
was contained in the old, improper art of making gold.

You see, my dear
friends, here we have a radical example showing how such
things turn inward. We have traced the strange mysterious
by-ways of such a thing as this: the connection of a sense
of shame with hatred. Such things must also be discovered
in the connections of human life if we would understand a
present life from its preceding conditions.

When we consider
such things as these, a certain measure of understanding is
indeed poured out over all that takes place through human
beings in the world. Then indeed great difficulties of life
begin, when we take the thought of karma in real earnest.
But these difficulties are meant to come, for they are
founded in the real essence of human life. Such a Movement
as the Anthroposophical must indeed be exposed to many
things, for only so can it evolve the strong forces which
it needs.

I gave you this
example first, so that you might see how we must seek
— even for negative things — the karmic
relationships with the whole stream of destiny which is
causing the Anthroposophical Movement to arise out of the
preceding incarnations of those who are joined together in
this Society.

So, my dear
friends, we may hope that there will awaken in us by-and-by
an entirely new understanding of the essence of this
Anthroposophical Society. We may hope to discover, as it
were, the very soul of the Anthroposophical Society with
all its many difficulties. For in this case too, we must
not remain within the limits of the single human life, but
trace it back to what is now being — I cannot say
re-incarnated — but re-experienced in life. In this
direction I wanted to begin today.